21 New York City Restaurants for Summertime Guys’ Dinners |
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21 New York City Restaurants for Summertime Guys’ Dinners
From century-old steakhouses to lively newcomers, these tables know how to handle a crew, celebrations and everything in between.
A guys' dinner is the meal that doesn't need a reason but always has one—a brother flying in, a deal closing, a 38th birthday, a bachelor party with a flight from Atlanta and a hotel in Tribeca. New York is built for the genre, with a chophouse tradition running back to the 1880s, a Greek seafood row on Ditmars Boulevard and a Pan-American oyster bar parked on an island in the harbor. The captains and bartenders in this town have seen every version of eight men on a Saturday, and most have a particular move—a wine they nudge you toward, a side they triple-comp, a way of materializing a four-top when the two-top suddenly won't work.
A few rules a room has to follow to qualify: It needs a proper bar—not three stools by the host stand, but a landing strip where you can stand, order the first round and let the table sort itself out. It needs ambient noise—a guys' dinner dies in a hushed room and lives in one that bounces the laughter back at you. It needs something to share—a steak for the table, a baked pasta, a multi-course feast that arrives in waves. The menu has to bend for the friend who wants everything from the raw bar and the friend who doesn't, and the music should drift up after 10 p.m. without anyone asking.
The World Cup lands at MetLife on July 19 with the city in full eat-and-drink mode, and the next two months will be thick with visiting fans, group reunions and last-minute table requests. Whether you're here for the tournament or rounding up the boys, here are 21 rooms for whatever the night demands—formal to informal, brand-new to century-old, each one ready for whatever you bring through the door.
Best Places for Guys' Dinner
Cote Korean Steakhouse
Six Coasts by Smorgasburg
Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi
323A Greenwich St, New York, NY 10013
Two-time Top Chef winner Buddha Lo's Michelin-starred tasting room moved from the Upper East Side to Tribeca, taking over a 28-seat, two-level space inside Marky's Caviar—vaulted cellar kitchen, Haring prints on the walls. The 12-course spring menu runs $285 per person: scallop with ajo blanco, foie gras with brioche, lobster with white asparagus, lamb with green asparagus, Valrhona dark chocolate finished with caviar. The Dirty Rich Martini arrives with an olive and—you guessed it—a caviar bump on the spoon. Between courses, you sneak into the basement kitchen and pose for a Polaroid with the chef.
72 W 36th St, New York, NY 10018
Four blocks from Madison Square Garden and 141 years into the run, Keens still serves its 26-ounce mutton chop with mint jelly. Roughly 45,000 clay pipes hang above you, a vestige of when patrons, which once included Babe Ruth, J.P. Morgan and Teddy Roosevelt, were permitted to store their fragile clay pipes on-site. The single-malt list stretches north of 300 labels, and the bar Bloody Mary is finished with balsamic, a twist that sounds odd until you've had one. Order the chop, the porterhouse for three, the wedge salad and the coffee cantata sundae that wraps up a $400 dinner with the dignity it deserves.
181 Thompson St, New York, NY 10012
The captains wear burgundy Zac Posen tuxedos, the Caesar comes whole to the table, and the spicy rigatoni vodka launched a thousand jarred imitations while still tasting better than all of them. Reservations remain a 30-day Resy operation, and the room calibrates itself among Bushwick hipsters, finance guys, and a celebrity in the corner banquette with three security looking deeply........